OU812

Did a search and have not seen this discussed. Please merge if I missed this.

Was on Marriott.com today. Made a reservation for the FS Knoxville, TN Marriott for a weekend stay. After I completed the reservation process on the confirmation screen was a little box that stated: Want to Guarantee Your Upgrade? Upgrade Your Room + $57 usd per night. Clicking on the link in the box brought up a new screen that stated: Want to guarantee an upgrade? For just $57 per night you can. The upgrade offered was to a luxurious king room. (As opposed to the king that is guaranteed in my reservation?) It was not to the concierge level, higher floor, corner room etc! Other upgrade options shown was two doubles for $66 per night. I have not seen this on Marriott.com since the last time I booked a reservation a few weeks ago. This is a common feature on Hilton's websites!

Will this make complimentary upgrades even harder to obtain at Marriott now? Will we stop seeing advance upgrades because Marriott may be able to sell upgrades as part of a last minute reservation?

Regards,

RIP...

windhund

Ah, upgrade monetization! Sounds like they took a cue from the airlines.

I'm curious how it'll work out. Hilton's upgrades, IIRC, are limited to one category up (though the property I suppose has discretion to upgrade you beyond that). I don't stay at Hiltons as often with traveling but have found that the one category policy generally applies and exceptions are not the norm. With Marriott, though, I feel like I get nicer upgrades more frequently. (By no means an expectation; I remain pleasantly surprised when it happens, and if it doesn't, they usually find me a decent room.) I would be sad to see the frequency of these nice upgrades decrease though.

RogerD408

Yes, sounds like MR has adopted the NOR1 HH plan.

Probably more to be rolled out as they get closer to merging the programs.

SkiAdcock

This was discussed in this forum within the last year or so. If you (and the you could be a non-elite as well) want to confirm your upgrade vs. waiting to find out at check-in, you have that option. If you choose not to, then you ignore the up sell. I think ultimately most determined it wasn't a big deal & that it was really targeted more towards non-elites, but Marriott's IT didn't make the distinction & so the offer came up for elites too. I know hhoope01 posted in the prior thread; perhaps he can find it next time he's on FT.

Cheers.

CPRich

Is "pay to guarantee your upgrade" much different than "book an upgraded room"? I can always guarantee I'm upgraded to a suite by booking a suite. I know I've seen upsell popups in the past, though I don't track which web site I was on.

EDIT: FWIW, I just did a mock-booking at the property. A regular room was $169 and the "Extended, Larger Guest room" or "Concierge level," were both $199. What were you getting for the $57/night upgrade?

OU812

Sharon, I think you might be referring to the discussion regarding eStandby upgrades, where an email is received from the hotel a few weeks before the stay regarding paying a fee for an upgrade that may be available at check-in. See http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/marri...at-status.html
That's just it. It was to guarantee an upgrade, but nothing was specified when I clicked on the link, just a luxurious king bed. When making the reservation only one room type was available. So not sure what type of upgrade I would be paying for.

I have had upsells for concierge level rooms, view rooms etc., pop up before completing the reservation. But this was on the page that shows the confirmation # after the booking was complete. I have never had an upsell pop up that explicitly states, "Pay to guarantee your upgrade!"

The more I think about Hilton's offers, they are not guarantees, you select the upgrade that you want and if it is available at check in you will get it for the specified price. Similar to the eStandby upgrades emails discussed above.



Regards,

RIP...



Regards,

RIP..

hhoope01

About a year ago there was this thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/marri...at-status.html

If I remember correctly the upgrades weren't "guaranteed" until check-in. So this sounds like it is something different. And my understanding of the Hilton "nor1" offers is more like the old thread than this one as I didn't think Hilton's NOR1 offers were guaranteed until check-in either.


Oops. Looks like OU812 found the same thread.

jr1202sr

starwood has had this feature as well as hilton for awhile.

ryw

It's been a while since I've stayed at a Starwood - do they send an upgrade email after you've made your reservation? I recall that during the booking process they'll popup an "upgrade your room" option before I finish making the reservation, but I don't recall an upgrade offer after making the reservation.

CCIE_Flyer

Yes, all that I ever recall with SPG is time-of-booking popup vs. after-the-fact e-mail offer. The thing I've noticed is that the popup offer generally tracks to rates I was already shown but chose not to book (so I book a Jr. Suite @ $150/night, see that an Executive Suite is available for $200/night, then I'm offered to "upgrade" for $50/night to Exec).

It's just a guess on my part, but I'm thinking this has a negligible impact on elite upgrade availability - at least in the case of SPG's "reminder" approach.

willphillipson

I don't think this is the same type of upgrade as a plat benefit... basically, this is a merchandising function running in the background - either on the website, crm, res system or pms or even an outsourced third party - that is looking at higher class available inventory, and according to configured business rules, offering that higher available inventory to you at an incremental price. Same thing as a cross sell or up sell on any other website (think "would you like a car rental from our partner xxxx"). The algorithms are pretty basic right now, but expect them to get way smarter in targeting the offers - offering more then just a one category upgrade and differential pricing instead of the straight up difference between what you chose and the next price point. But for right now, this isn't really a "Guarantee your upgrade" but rather a "buy the next category up".

hockeyinsider

I have seen this a few times, but it has never been prominent. I'll have to pay more attention.

On a side note, "luxurious" and a regular, flagship Marriott in North America can be an oxymoron.

rylan

I saw this a few months ago during check in... unfortunately I forget which hotel it was. And the offers were silly... same room as I booked but for more money.